As part of a computer setup, there are some essential programs one needs to have installed. Personally, here is my suite of programs that I install on a clean machine.
First and foremost, there is an awesome site called Ninite that helps setup Windows machines. From Ninite, I always install the following.
- Web Browsers
- Chrome
- Opera
- Firefox
- Utilities: WinDirStat (helps find large files)
- Messaging
- Skype
- Thunderbird (free email client, alt. to MS Outlook)
- Media
- iTunes (music/video)
- VLC (video player, plays everything)
- Audacity (audio editing)
- Spotify (better radio than iTunes)
- QuickTime
- Runtimes *REQUIRED
- Java
- .NET
- Silverlight
- Air
- Shockwave
- Compression: 7-zip (helps find large files)
- Imaging
- GIMP (optional, if you do not have PhotoShop)
- Inkscape (optional, if you do not have Illustrator)
- Documents
- OpenOffice (optional, free alternative to MS Office)
- Reader
- Online Storage
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- SkyDrive
- Developer Tools
- Python (optional)
- Filezilla (FTP/sFTP)
- Notepad++ (Powerful Editor)
- JDK (optional)
- PuTTY (required for Git, etc.)
- Eclipse (optional IDE)
Once you select all of these, you simply click "Get Installer," then run the installer, and go get some Starbucks for Brian Gardner's sake or a Mountain Dew for my sake. Simply walk away and do something else for a bit.
After these install, I also install the following softwares manually:
- Adobe Creative Suite/Cloud Master Collection (par excellence design tool)
- Latest Version of Internet Explorer
- Safari for Windows
- XAMPP: Local Apache & PHP server for rapid development.
- MySQL Workbench: If you are used to MS SQL Server, then this will make you feel more at home.
- Git for Windows (Download): For running Git from the command line.
- TortoiseSVN: WordPress Core Trac Patches & use with Assembla SVN (free private SVN repos)
- TortoiseGit: Use with Github & Bitbucket (free private Git repos)
- Atlassian Source Tree: Windows GUI for Git (works with Github and Bitbucket)
- Bitvise Tunnelier: SSH & FTP Client, better than PuTTY IMHO
- NodeJS: Use with CSSLint, JSLint, Grunt, etc.
- Git Credentials: Stores credentials so I don't have to enter them over and over again.
- Screen Capturing Software: Jing and/or TinyGrab2
- Cyberduck: Awesome FTP client for Amazon S3
- Sublime Text: Premium Editor ($70)
- phpStorm: Premium Editor ($99)
Did I miss anything from a Windows perspective?
Mike Paddy says
Now how about Mac users…
Travis Smith says
The next time I stumble on a small pot of gold, I will purchase a Mac and write up a post about the Mac and its softwares for the purposes of development.
Brandon Speaks says
Mac lovers here you go: http://getmacapps.com/